Join our Twitter Chat: Getting Experimental Drugs to the Dying

By

Ed Silverman

Sep 17, 2014 2:32 pm ET

The pleas for help show up on television and in social media – someone is desperately ill and believes an experimental medicine may be the only chance. But the medicine is out of reach unless a drug maker makes it available, even if the FDA offers its bureaucratic blessing. Known colloquially as compassionate use, the FDA program for providing access to medicines is increasingly controversial as more people attempt end runs around the process.

The issue raises all sorts of difficult ethical questions about drug development and regulatory oversight. So let’s chat about this. On Monday, September 22 from 8 – 9 p.m. ET, we will hold another Pharmalot Twitter Chat – and our topic will be Compassionate Use. Join us using #pharmalotchat Our special guest host will be Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Langone Medical Center.